Interesting way of conceptualizing the search for a way for everyone to pay
for music. In a “blanket licensing”
scheme, everyone pays some money to their ISP which is then distributed to
labels/artists. I think there is a sense
that micropayments just aren’t going to work any time soon, so maybe this is a good alternative.

The BBC is funded by a compulsory Television Licence, which according to wikipedia is a kind of "hypothecation tax" (Note to self: use hypothecation to win at Scrabble some time) which seems to work, though it requires some level of enforcement.

Amen to that. We as a society are so litigious that we only deal in the extremes, it appears. We've got the pirates vs. the record companies, with the the companies unable as a practical matter to recover from damages from every person with an "infringing use." The strategy this far has been to sue anyone they can find "making available" files on a files-sharing network.

In reality, if everyone paid a little, we might have a much better policy than no one (or a minority) paying "some."